Where To Wander
by me38242
Summary: Zuko is banished from the Fire Nation at age 8. Katara is found lying ashore, beside his ship, at age 7. This is a story about growing up. Zutara.
1. The Past

**Chapter One: Not Knowing Why**

* * *

><p>The nervousness in the young boy swelled up as he stood by the door and heard sobs emanating from inside the room. It was a wooden door, crudely furnished, but deemed fit enough for the ship of a banished 11-year-old prince.<p>

His father, Fire Lord Ozai, had told him—promise him in a letter—that he would be given a new ship when he turned 16. A nicer ship with which to roam the world, wander everywhere but to home.

_Wander_ was the word Katara liked to romantically describe his situation with. Not _banished_.

Not _your father hates you and never liked you and wanted you to disappear after your mother left_.

She would describe it as _wandering_... in this romantic way.

She would clasp her hands together and those bright blue eyes would just seem to obliterate the world with the amount of shine and sparkle they would simply exude as she would get caught up in those erroneous notion.

But much as Zuko would want to shut her down—to growl at her and remind that he was, indeed, banished and _forbidden_ from returning home—in the back of his mind, he had wanted to strive to believe it.

He had wanted to believe it. That he was journeying simply on _wanderlust_.

Because no 11-year-old boy should be forced to journey simply because his father can't stand the sight of him, the sight of his face, which was so eerily similar to that of his mother's.

It was when He was 9 and she was 8 that she'd first suggested it—_wander-lust. _She couldn't remember much from her water tribe home (presumably a water tribe upbringing at least), but she said that it was a word that left an inkling on her tongue; a reminder.

A water tribe word that meant a desire to explore, to be free of the world and all worldly attachments. To let go of responsibility—release it—and roam around the world with the desire to search, explore, dive deep into the treasures of the world and learn more and more about everything on earth.

_Wanderlust_. That's how she described his banishment. That was when he was 9 and she was 8, and it had been one year since they'd found her lying on the deck on the shore of a banking.

When he was 8 and she was 7, she had been found lying on the rough metal edges of a port dock. Right in front of his ship, as if they had been waiting to find her. Zuko only had vague memories of the time, but her hair had been unhealthy and askew and splattered all over her.

Iroh would recall that her clothes had been torn and she had seemed as if she were a vengeful water spirit having risen out of the sea—a small but vengeful water-maiden perhaps shirked and gone awry. There was seaweed stuck all over black wavy hair spread about her figure on the group. She lay limply, seeming dead and beyond hope. Perhaps already a martyred and murdered waterspirit.

But when Iroh had touched her, the second his first finger gently poked her child forearm, he had felt a light.

A light of fire and _that_ was when he had known she was alive.

He had taken her on his ship (which was _Iroh's_ own ship until Zuko had received a one from his supposedly benevolent father, on his ninth birthday), and nursed her back to health.

And slowly, the death-ridden look of her position and posturedied out on the infirmary bed. And before the ship knew it, a delightful new voice had graced the ship—one of a lovely young girl.

The moment Iroh realized the 7-year old girl and the happiness that she introduced to the otherwise solemn ship, had he received perspective on how grim their journey thus far truly had been. It was at that moment that the middle-aged general decided to _keep_ her. It was that moment of delightful insight that something new roused within him: the frown fell from his face, the armor fell from his chest, the bitter worries and disapproval with what his younger brother was doing with his kingdom and the constant worry with what his younger brother had _done_ to his nephew... just disappeared.

It had all disappeared once he realized the joy that Katara innately introduced the ship, the belief that something more—something _better—_could exist.. was when Iroh gave up and sat down and took off his grim jet-black armor. It was at that moment that he sat down at a Pai Sho table and took a sip of tea and his eyes sparkled like a new light.

When he began to see Zuko as not a pity case—not the poor benefactor of his magnanimity and unfortunate circumstance of his brother's wrath, but rather a new light in the world.

It was the sound of the laughter that had gotten to Iroh that day, nearly a week after they had finally got around to finish treating Katara.

Katara was important to them all. Zuko knew this. And this was why he trembled with fear and confusion as he heard the indelible slaught of sobs coming from the other side of the door—_her _door. Coming from _her_.

The wood was rot and rotting from the winds of the sea that had penetrated it for three years, but no worries—his father said he would be treated a new one soon.

Unfortunately, the currently rotting wood on her door made it so that he could hear all her sobs clearly.

And darn it, he was too afraid to go in and ask why.

He knew something important had happened; Katara didn't usually cry. And when she did, she would not hide away from him and cry like _this_. She would cry when he'd hurt her in a game or something. She would cry loudly and scream at him angrily. Not.. not in the never-ending hopeless, heartfelt way she was doing now. Not in the type of way that would inspire _fear_ within him like it was doing right at this moment.

He was _afraid_ to go in. She was not angry; she was _sad_.

Imagine that: him. Zuko. Crown Prince of the Fire Nation (or previous, whatever). _Afraid_ to go into simple Katara's room?

He had never been _afraid_ of Katara. They had been playmates since she had first found a home on his Uncle's ship.

And since he was a few months older, naturally, he was the leader. He had always been in charge of what they played and what the rules were and he was supposed to tell Katara what to do.

He _was_ nine months older, anyway. So it was justified.

But now he was afraid to go in. He gulped deeply, standing outside the door.

He could go in there and tell her to shut up and stop crying... or he could wait until she stopped and then demand to know why she had even been crying.

But somehow, neither of those choices seemed particularly nice or amenable.. Or applicable to this situation. He was scared. She sounded scared.

She had ran into the breakfast/dining room that morning as Iroh and Zuko had been eating breakfast. Her face had a look of frantic surprise on it and her eyes were erratic and she had completely ignored Zuko and rushed past the table to Iroh's side to whisper something into his ear.

General Iroh had raised his eyebrows and then told her to go back to her room and then shortly thereafter left the room.

Zuko had looked up from his plate and blinked blankly at him leaving. What had just happened? He hadn't been paying attention

After watching his Uncle leave, without another thought, he finished up his eggs and meat and then left, wanderedout onto the deck to find his helmsmen, whom had acquiesced to his sincere and nervous request for two firebending practice partners in the mornings. It was still nine and his 11-year-old forehead was heavy with sweat accumulated from training with full-grown men, when he once again wandered away from the deck to find Katara. The training with his crew members had finished, and now he begun to wonder where Katara was.

By this time, she would normally be up (she was such a sleepyhead) and they would be ready to go to his room and look at maps and his books and decide on their future plan of action. They would play around with the stuff in his room—he had never really appreciated all of the various knickknacks that his second-aunts and second-uncles would send to him overseas until after Katara came—and create stories and games and plan their adventures. It almost kind of sort of made him excited about having so much more time to do stuff before he inherited the throne. (And Iroh was convinced that he _would_, despite his current situation).

Best of all with having Katara as a playmate was that she always knew what to say or do. On some level, he kept up a discouraging sense of optimism for his future. On the other, he maintained a steady balance of desire and neutrality for his presence.

Katara always knew what to say or do. She could make him forget for a while about all the bad aspects of his banishment. Make him stop wondering _why_ he was banished.

Even though he was the oldest, he wasn't sure he would have much to lead if Katara weren't there to tell him about the stories and what adventures they could go on anyway. They had recently been creating a tale of a desert wanderer in the Eastern Hemisphere Desert, and had been planning their (tentative) jungle trip to the Swampy Marshes of Earth Kingdom. (They had yet to inform Uncle of this plan and decision).

(Katara always said that it was better to plan first and do later. They would bring it to Uncle once they were sure exactly how many foggy swamp grass leaves they would need to eat to survive for four weeks in the jungle).

Katara was Zuko's best playmate. He would sighed lamentedly on the days Iroh that would take her outside to the town for a treat when they happened to be docked near a town.

Zuko generally hated going out, so he never went. The first time he had gone out, in the first week he had been banished when he was eight, every villager and marketeer in the open-market had stopped speaking and turned and gasped at him.

_The banished prince! That's the banished prince! _

_He _is_ here. It wasn't just a lie! The rumoured banished prince of the Fire Nation._

_Oh my, that scar.. my he's only eight. I wonder what he did._

_You know firebenders—they're ruthless. Just imagine how this little one got so ruthless that even his _family _had to kick him out._

_I heard he's going to be Fire Lord again someday, I heard it was just a dispute over his father... when his father dies..._

_Prince Zuko is his name, isn't it? _

Everyone had heard the rumours and recognized him. Cleared a pathway through the street for him. Through the years, he had stayed sullied up in his ship whenever they would dock for new supplies near a large port with a town and bazaar and city. His uncle would bring him back things. The public eye had definitely not seen the prince in ages and he had no desire to show his ugly face to the world ever again... not with the stigma he would face, though that rationale was much too complex for his 10-year-old mind to decipher.

All Zuko did during those times that the port launched was sulk in his study room and wait for Katara and Iroh to get back. There would be only two helmsmen still on the ship; his uncle would only keep them there to keep on eye on Zuko, for everyone else would be wanting to be out in town. It was eerily silent and quiet those times on the ship, but he was just sit there and wait.

Aside from those days that Katara would disappear with Uncle into the time, Zuko and Katara followed a regularly leisurely routine.

They were kids; they did essentially whatever they wanted but routine and stability was also quite rather nice.

Katara enjoyed having breakfast with Iroh and Zuko, and so would force herself awake at _"the most ungodliest of times!" _to eat it with the two firebenders blearily.

Personally, Zuko didn't understand the sense behind her motives. She would be drooping her chin off into the bowl of cereal and snoring into her milk-filled spoon while Iroh would be giggling and Zuko would be staring unamusedly at her.

Or, she would show up unreasonably happy with crust coating the sides of her large eyes, coupled with lots of eye boogers.

Zuko wasn't much of a conversationalist in the morning either, so he would usually just listen to Iroh chuckle and Katara's inconsistancies with half his mind.

And then, eventually, he would walk off to find whichever two helmsmen had volounteered to spar the 11-year-old boy that day, and Katara would sleepily trinkle back into her room like a tired ghost and plop back down on the bed to sleep a bit more after her breakfast with her two favorite firebending royals.

_Seriously_, Zuko would think as he'd pass by her room during training to get a drink of water, _What is the point in getting up to eat breakfast early with us everyday anyway?_

But after his training was over, she would be up from her after-breakfast nap, smiling and bright.

And he would be energetic and ecstatic and with blood pounding in his bones, heart beat rising from his excercises.

They would go to his "study" room and look over his things and try and read the map and materials and work on a new story, or perhaps come up with a new game with which to play. Katara would try every so often to get him to come out to the market with Uncle Iroh and her, and he would adamantly decline the request (for reasons Katara would _never_ understand of course—).

And after their afternoon was over, it would be time for Zuko's lessons with his private tutor.

He would have to sit through three or four hours of history lessons, cultural texts, politics lectures, tea ceremony ettiquette (yes! tea!), court politics mantra, mathematics review, economics teaching, ancient literatur, and confucious analects.

It was a boring, mundane, trivial task. And Zuko wondered why his _tutor_ didn't just become Fire Lord if he knew everything so well. And the boring tea ritual was the worst part of every week..

In moment of anger and frustration whenever he'd fail to grasp another complex mathematic concept, Zuko would ask himself why the hell he'd have to learn court politics anyway if he wasn't even _in_ a court. He was a _banished prince_, not a part of current day court nobility. His sister, _Azula_ was in the court. _He_ was not. He was not his father's favorite. _He_ looked like his mother.

_He _was banished out.

Yet, he ignored the unspoken notion that he may not gain the Fire throne in the future and worked diligently on his lessons in the hopes that someday, in the future, his father will call him back and name him The Fire Lord.

For now, as Katara said, he was simply pursuing a _wanderlust_. Of his own being and volition. Doing everything that he could not possibly do within being confined to the position and throned seat of the Fire Lord. It was a privilege, a sanctity, rather than some cruel and unusual punishment.

"_Hah!" _Katara had said when he'd first brought up his concerns to her._"What do you care about Azuka? _She_ doesnt get to pursue her wanderlust like you do! She's stuck dancing in pretty little pointy shoes and pretending to say things she doesn't care about! Oh!—I want to see the polar bear-platypuses!... Hmm... Is it platypi? Let's go to the north pole next!"_

Yep. Katara always made him feel better.

After his lessons, which he worked diligently on because Katara and Iroh had convinced him he would soon become Firelord, he would go back to the dinner/breakfast/dining hall of the small ship to have dinner with his Uncle, Iroh, and Katara. Sometimes he'd invite Jee too.

He would _never_ invite his tutor though. This guy was _inscrutable_.

So Zuko had become worried when instead of finding her in his room after his firebending practice like he always did, she was instead sobbing in her room in a way he had never seen heard before.

He was too afraid to open the door and wondered back to breakfast time when he had been too silly and beacon to notice that she had disappeared after whispering something urgently to Uncle Iroh.

Zuko wasn't sure why, but he was upset. Knowing that he was scared was not a very fun thing.

Katara hadn't come to continue their novel or work on their future plans of travel and itinerary, or check out the new snow globe his captain had brought for the two of them them from a trader at the last market he'd stopped at during a midnight pit stop.

And he wasn't sure what to do about it.


	2. Lady

**Where To Wander**

**Chapter Two: Lady**

* * *

><p>Taking a deep breath, Zuko squared his shoulders. He had been standing and waiting outside that door for twenty minutes now and now that he realized it, he felt quite stupid.<p>

This was _his_ ship afterall. He had the right to go into any and every which room he pleased. No crying girl would stop him from doing so.

A frown grace his face as he made up his resolve. He'd show Katara who was the boss around here.

She couldn't just _break_ their daily routine. It was a _routine_ afterall. He had waited in his study room for fifty minutes after his training, slowly incensing.

"Kata—" he began angrily, opening the door, but stopped hesitantly once she caught sight of him.

The door was opened slightly ajar, and once again those morbane feelings came over him; the ones he had been contemplating outside the door for the past twenty minutes, when her eyes landed on his.

The slight mote of resolve which he had summed off dissipated before himself as he saw her sitting ontop of her bed.

_Hearing_ her cry and _seeing_ her were two different things, he realized; the latter was too real for him. The sight left him a bit speechless—mostly because he had no notion why.

So he didn't walk further into the room.

Her eyes looked like they were bleeding from the inside out, rimmed red. Her brown face, tear-stained. The large blue eyes.. looked.. vindicated.

And at seeing him in her doorway, if anything, more tears began to spill out. Her face crumpled up into sadness from surprised once again and she burrowed her head back into her raised knees.

The fear swelled up within him, but then he decided that it was stupid. She was stupid.

And he was in charge here. What he says goes.

"What's your problem?" his forced, yet child-like voice, roughly got out.

If anything, she began to cry even _harder_ now. And it was annoying him. Was it too much to ask to just stick to their normal schedule? Why was she so upset—its not like he had done anything bad recently or messed with her stuff. He was above that; he was a prince, afterall.

To his mite infuriation, she didn't respond. Some part of him told himself that he should be getting angrier right now—ignoring _him_ while in a room that _he_ had given her on _his_ own ship.

(Sure, Iroh had been in charge of room distribution and stuff, but still—the _idea _of it).

"Gosh Katara, stop being so girly," he finally commanded, his voice rising as he stared at her form sitting ontop of the bed.

At that, the sobbing stopped.

She looked up at him and the sorry face made him feel sad for shouting but after a while, high-pitched voice spoke.

"Please get out Zuko," Katara said in a quiet and sad voice he'd never heard before, before turning away with a shamed look on her face.

Dumbfounded at the idea that Katara was _commanding him_ to do something, the contrived anger on his face dropped along with a lower lip and he stared at her for shamed look for a moment longer.

Having nothing to say, and left speechless, Zuko found himself aquiescing to her quiet and intense request and then gently closed the door in front of him. Back in the hallway and by himself, he frowned furiously and looked down.

Something was wrong.

* * *

><p>Hoped to run into Uncle Iroh before reaching his room, Zuko turned three corners and walked down a hallway before reaching a wall with a gold brass door on it.<p>

Knocking crisply on the equally antiquated but heavier door, Zuko forwent the formal processes of arduous rituals and just opened it. In the back of his brash eleven-year-old mind, he knew he wasn't supposed to barge into an elders' room, no matter how royal he was, but this was an urgent matter, the answers to which he needed precisely _now_.

He found his uncle sitting in front of a low table, working steadly to brew a curiously-smelling elixir of his new volition. His uncle hadn't always been such a tea connosieur, but this recent development had formed somewhere along the way during their journey. Crinkling his nose at the sudden onslaught of mixed and exotic aroma, Zuko walked in, withholding the urge to block off his nostrils.

"Uncle," he directed suddenly, walking in with a regality that was rarely ever seen coming from a boy only 61 ½ inches tall, "Why the hell is Katara crying ontop of her bed?" he demanded.

"Language, Zuko," his Uncle admonished, before allowing surprise to manifest itself on a form on his face, "And she is crying? For what reason?"

"Thats what I'm asking _you,_" Zuko all but growled.

He was getting impatient, and furious.

Concern did less than overwhelm the old man and he curiously thought back to why.

Katara had gotten her period this morning, but that did not explain why she would be crying now.

A man of some considerable number of years, Iroh was fairly certain that a young girl's first menstruel cycle did nothing to substantially pain her in any way. At least not to bring to tears. She was fairly undeveloped, so cramps could not be afflicting her yet either.

Tapping his chin thoughtfully over his new tea, Iroh considered the possibilities and wondered for a moment, if water-tribe (or perhaps, eastern Earth kingdom, as Katara also may be) girls had some other standards by which to follow.

But quickly, the Dragon of the West called this intimation off, as he had his fair share bit of worldly knowledge to refute this momentary glance.

Zuko, meanwhile, his nephew, was still standing over him in a furious rage, demanding to know why. His fists were clenched tight, and he could tell his basically-adopted son did not like the new aroma of his latest concoction.

The thought disturbed him... maybe he should reconsider taking the ginger out. Bad aroma gives practice to a bad tea. Iroh frowned substantially as he was looking down at this brew.

Oh well, this batch would have to be a brass.

"WELL?" his nephew shouted at him once again.

For an 11-year-old, Iroh slyly noted in his mind, he sure had developed quite a bit of a temper.

No doubt the spoiling superiority had helped cultivate it in the prince of the fire nation—and Iroh had yet to assert whether such cultures in raising princely children of the court were becoming of a future ruler, or rather detrimental to their developing—but even so, he lamentedly thought back to the notion that perhaps his banishment had helped contribute to it.

Nonetheless, he thought he might as well explain to his son the monthly afflictions of girls.

* * *

><p>By the end of the discussion, Zuko was staring down at his knees, his fists clenched and leaning against his thighs as he sat on the ground, across the low tea table from Iroh. He refused to look up at Iroh—it would be too embarrassing. His face was now tinged a curious shade of slighted pink.<p>

He looked away to the side. And then after a while cleared his throat.

"So..." Zuko began, still refusing to look directly at his uncle, "That still doesnt explain why she's crying. Unless it... hurts?"

The thought suddenly struck him at that moment and embelled him with fear.

Maybe thats why she'd wanted him to get out?

"No... I don't think thats the reason," his Uncle thoughtfully considered.

"Then? What's the problem?"

"Perhaps she just does not feel like playing toda—"

"It's not _playing,_" Zuko interrupted, "It's _battle planning._"

"Yes.. _battle planning_, today. My sincere apologies, Prince Zuko."

"You're forgiven."

"Perhaps you might go about as to inquire for yourself, why she is upset today?"

The flush from faded from Zuko's face.

Walking back out from his Uncle's quarters at a considerably slower and delayed pace from the one with which he initially had entered them with, Zuko tried even harder to drag out the walk longer.

His Uncle, Prince Iroh, had just told him to go find out why Katara was crying. He couldn't disobey an order, and according to court teachings, it was, indeed, a discretionary order from a member of royalty higher than him. His lessons taught him to understand from speech of royalty, hidden with euphamisms and politeness, and decipher which ones were orders, connotations, commands, suggestions and... jokes.

But all this did not change the fact that he really did not _want_ to. He dreaded the notion, after hearing about _what_ had happened to Katara this morning.

At those thoughts, red rose up in his face again.

Katara... Katara had gotten her first...

And before he knew it, he was standing in the doorway of her room once again and staring at her blankly.

Except this time, he couldn't stop _thinking _about... a furious red blush graced his face as he looked off to the side to hide it.

It was gross. But he was a prince—he couldn't _be _grossed out. His uncle told him that men think of it as maturity.

"What are you doing here?" she asked with some anger. She seemed a bit less sad and bit more bitter this time. And he wasn't sure about whether that was a good or bad thing—Katara got pretty crazy when she was angry..

Not that he _knew_ what he had done to deserve anger right now. He suspected that perhaps it had something to do with that shouting before.. Katara didn't happen to consider standing him when he put on vibes of superiority. It had especially surprised him when had told her to _get out, please_ politely last time instead of getting angry.

He had shouted to half incite anger within her and knock some sense back into her to get her to _stop_ crying. But it had lashed around back at him and she had gotten sadder.

So now, he was utterly more at a loss of what to do. Eleven year old boys shouldn't have to deal with this, he thought. But he was a Prince.

Obviously, he had more troubles in life than normal eleven-year-old boys. So he must undoubtedly deal with this tumultuous circumstance.

Because, afterall, he was a prince. Noble, perpetually _learning, _and ready to vindicate validication on anyone and any whom asked. That was his job.

"Why are you crying?" he asked, thinking he'd suddenly just get to the point.

As if an ocean was hidden within her, the tears came flooding out again with a new and fresh poignancy.

Oh, great. Now he was _sure_ that he was part of the problem. Even if he wasn't though, he was at the very least, sure that he was _exacerbating_ the problem.

And his uncle's great idea had been for _him_ to investigate why she was crying? _Great_.

He needed a ship therapist or something of that sort. He didn't know how to talk at all.

"C'mon," he gruffly got out, looking further off to the side and refusing to meet her eyes, "It's... not y'know... _that _bad..."

Silence consumed them. She curiously looked up to him, an awkward boy standing strangely near the door in the middle of her room and looking off to the side.. with a furiously red face that was heated.

A shocked and disgusted look that came over her face and Katara became scandalized. After the mere the moment it took her to assume, she was nearly incited her to scream: _HE TOLD YOU? GENERAL IROH FREAKING _TOLD _YOU?_

_HOW COULD YOU TELL _HIM_?_

ZUKO! Of all people!

But for some strange reason, instead of the angry thoughts whispering in the back of her mind and the anger instilled at his words brushing the back of her through, she instead got upset.

The desire to scream ebbed away and _those_ thoughts came up inside her mind again and quelled the anger as it turned into sadness.

And started crying even harder. Because now he _knew_. _Great_.

Those other thoughts quickly came up in her head all over again. The ones that had been coming up for ages and all day in her mind. The ones that had bolstered that ability to cry all day. A remarkable feat.

The one that had gotten her so upset in the first place.

The undeniable fact that she was a _girl_ now.

After the tense moment passed between them—Katara having gone from mad, to furious, to upset and sobbing—Zuko sighed an exasperated sigh. Now she was back to her arms, hugging her knees and crying into them ontop of the bed, and seemingly ignoring his presence as she drowned her face in tears.

What _was_ the big deal anyway? She wasn't even saying anything.

His brow twitched. She seemed to be ignoring him right now.

Somehow, the knowledge seemed to both relieve and annoy him.

The relief allowed him to walk a few steps closer, closer to the bed ontop of which Katara was lying. The annoyance made him gruffly talk out to her.

"What's your problem Katara, lets just go back to the study room."

Katara, her face covered by her arms, her eyes looking down at her thighs, frowned.

_She couldn't go play with him anymore_.

"I can't," her muffled voice sounded out. Zuko frowned furiously. Imperiously, staring down at her a foot away from the side of her bed.

"WHY not?" he demanded.

Katara frowned even deeper, but it had nothing to do with herself and more with the arrogance in his voice. She hated it and admonished him when he acted petty and spoiled. She was appalled that that was a part of his _upbringing_, but she had worked hard to train him to not speak to other people like hogs when he was around her.

It was disrespectful.

"I'm a girl."

She brought her head up to look at him. Head cocked, he stared at her a while longer trying to decipher her meaning.

* * *

><p>"<em>You can't come in here," an arrogant eight year old voice had said to her. The young boy was glaring at her with bright yellow eyes that seemed to exhude anger and set the standards decorum. <em>

"_Why not?"_

"_You're a girl. I don't allow girls in here." Thoughts of Azula and those horrible friends of hers came flooding back to Zuko's mind._

_He _hated_ playing with girls. Why did Uncle let this girl on board? He should know by now that they were all freaking crazy! _

"_I'm not a girl," Katara said vehemently and frowned. A distant memory of a young boy with a wolf's tail tied on the tip of his head came back to her. He told her that she couldn't play because she was a girl. _

_Then, she convinced him that she should be allowed to play and threw snowballs at him until she beat him. _

"_Yeah you are," the young fire nation boy said with convinction, pointing an accusatory finger at her, "You look like one. I'll never let you into my study room. Girls are all crazy. Go tell Uncle that you want to leave so that you can finally get off this ship." _

"_I'm not a girl! Let me prove it!" _

_And then several weeks had commenced during which Zuko and Katara had played some trial and true tests and he had finally decided that Katara, indeed, _wasn't_ in fact a girl so that he could continue to play with her. _

* * *

><p>Zuko groaned and slapped his palm onto his forehead.<p>

She was thinking about _that_, wasn't she? He had nearly forgotten.

And three years later, he had most definitely stopped caring and conceded to the fact that Katara was a good companion and amused him greatly. He looked forward to their afternoons in his study—precisely the reason he was incensed that she hadn't shown up that day.

But she was thinking about _that_?

"I'm a girl now," she sniffled.

If anything, Zuko groaned even harder in his head, his palm still sticking to his forehead.

But Katara continued crying.

At least now he knew the reasoning behind her behavior, but how to fix this? He had no experience with crying girls.

He couldn't say, 'no, you're not a girl. I said so,' like he usually might..because. Well.

She had just gotten her first... Zuko's face turned red once again and he looked away from her. And no doubt Uncle had explained the whole 'being-a-girl' thing to her.

He grimaced mentally, wondering how poorly he'd twisted it and explained it to her as he'd explained.

But then, suddenly, admist his thoughts, other notions came up in Zuko's mind. Thoughts that came back from Iroh's discussion with him.

Iroh had not only... explained the logistics of how men and women differ in their monthly cycles..but had also enlightened him as to why they look different.

It was because women had to go through.. _this_.. and men did not. Men had different problems, Iroh had said, that he said he would tell Zuko some other time.

Zuko had been relieved that Iroh wasn't trying to explain anything more to him and just nodded, hoping to Agni that Iroh would hurry up and finish the discussion.

But.. Iroh had also gone on a rant. A tirade that, coupled with his teachings from Teacher Liu, was about manners and ettiquette and how men differed from women.

He had, afterall, had to learn female mannernisms in court society as part of his tutelage. It was just a formality, but still required.

And then Zuko looked down at the wooden floor on the ship, observing his toes and blushed furiously as the thought came to him.

Katara was sad and embarrassed about being a girl.

Sad and embarrassed—those two feelings, he could sympathize and empathize with clearly.

He had hated feeling sad and embarrassed; had always felt sad and embarrassed at the palace. His sister, Azula, his friends, his father, his grandfather... they were always the ones that had made him feel sad and embarrassed.

But Katara never made him feel that way.

And it made him feel bad that _he_ was now suddenly the one making _her_ this way. He could just imagine how bad she felt. And he wanted to fix it.

And he didn't know any way how, so he racked his mind for all of his teachings.

Katara was a girl now... what could he do about that?

It was _his_ fault that she was feeling embarrassed now, but he couldn't very well go back in time and fix saying those mean words to her. If anything, he wouldn't do it even if he had the choice. Afterall, he _still_ did believe that all girls were crazy.

Even Katara showed semblances of craziness sometimes. But not like Azula, and she was never mean.

Zuko frowned.

What had his Uncle told him? His tutor.

He was a prince. He was noble, learning, proud, and strove to nurture _honor _and respect.

"You're not just any girl, Katara," Zuko finally said, frowning. "You're my girl._"_

She was, afterall, not crazy. And that had to be an oddball anomaly. Katara was _his_ girl, which was why he enjoyed having her as a companion. She wasn't crazy, and that was okay. That was why he got along with her. It just made sense.

She didn't ever make him feel sad or embarrassed, and the only other girl who had ever not done this was his mother, Princess and Lady Ursa.

"From now on, you are Lady Katara," Zuko decided to pronounce regally, "And you are _my_ girl now, so it's okay that you are a girl."

Katara looked up to him, only slightly sniffling and Zuko noticed how sleepy she looked.

She must've been worn out with all that crying—plus her.. _womenly_ problems...

He felt like blushing again, but then shook off the thought.

If she was Lady Katara, he should not be embarrassed by anything having to do with it.

So he slid into the covers beside her and patted her shoulder gently with one hand. Slowly, her eyelids drifted down and she fell into a light sleep.

Turning over onto his back once he was done patting her shoulder to sleep, Zuko stared up at her ceiling, the canopy of the young girl sitting beside him's bed.

Katara.. Katara would grow all those _womenly_ parts now, his Uncle had said. Now that she had gotten her period.

And women, his tutor had said and taught him, were more delicate and should be treated as well. They were fragile and were to be protected and comforted and supported.

And a good Prince did all those things, his tutor had told him.

Well, he'd comforted Katara right now. So he was doing well.

And he was protecting her right now too, since he was lying right here beside her and protecting any outsiders from coming in.

Girls were annoying—Katara was _annoying, _but he couldn't help it. If he had to do all this to make sure he had a play mate during his daily afternoon lulls, then it wasn't worth _that_ big of a sacrifice.

* * *

><p>When Iroh sneaked a peak into Katara's room, he found the one prince lying on his side on one edge of the bed and Katara facing towards him from the other side. There was a good foot between them, but still the sight warmed his heart.<p>

He hoped Zuko might have been able to soften his heart to her. But what he hadn't expected was the young boy frowning and calling everyone up to the deck before breakfast and a bit before sunrise, Katara still in the lull of sleep in her room.

Neither had he expected the young boy frowning and standing ontop of a barrel to look over and address the entire crew before commanding:

"From now on, you will address Lady Katara as _so. _Anyone who dares to defy this axiom will have swabbing duty for three months at a time."

No, he had not expected that.

"Lady Katara is_ my _lady, so you will treat her just as you would Lady Ursa."

Iroh could see the astonished looks behind the metal helmets of each and every member of the crew, and had snickered a little bit behind his sleeve in response.

They were all quite surprised at what young Zuko was saying—he had never commanded the crew or ship in such a way and above his demands, but it was _what_ he was saying that left them all dumbfounded.

_An 11-year-old boy is pronouncing Katara as his lady?_

The astonished silence soon loosened up as they sunk this phrase in and smiled quietly to themselves behind their covered masks.

_The young prince Zuko just called Katara his lady._

Iroh snickered even louder as he felt the mood change on the deck. Zuko was still glaring at all of them fiercely, willing each of them to defy his protocols.

He wasn't aware at _all_ of what he had said.

Iroh snickered full out loudly this time. Zuko wasn't aware _at all_ about what his declaration said. Or how... _cute_... it seemed coming from an 11-year-old boy.

Iroh wondered what had transpired between Zuko and Katara in her room last afternoon, but pushed it to the back of his mind as Zuko's further actions began to furthur surprise him.

The young boy began to take his duties as Katara's patron seriously.


	3. Fixing It

**Chapter Three: Fixing It**

* * *

><p>Katara woke up grumbling, a slightly larger figure with a heavy arm over her.<p>

She looked up beyond the arm and blinked, seeing a head full of messy, shaggy hair covering the eyes of the young fire nation prince—her playmate.

He was snoring lightly, or perhaps breathing deeply, and although his small arm was slung lazily over her, his face was directed in the other direction and he was seemingly oblivious to their disposition.

Katara grunted as she moved his uncomfortable arm and threw it to the side, before she crept away from the bed and went to the bathroom. She felt.. uncomfortably wet down there.

Once in the bathroom and kneeling down to see the messy dried blood in her underwear, Katara sighed and looked up at the ceiling.

Life sucked. She hated it when she got the monthly curse that Iroh so fondly called "the passage" of becoming a woman.

It wasn't so much of a gift as a nuisance.. cleaning the rags.

And although it didn't happen every month the way that Iroh had said (the ship doctor had said that it was because she wasn't "regular" yet), it was still annoying when it would suddenly happen.

This was her second time of it ever happening and the first time had been horrible, but it was already beginning to lose it's novelty. Now it was just annoying.

And it didn't change the fact that it still got her upset yesterday.

The words, "I'm disgusting," had tugged some strings in Prince Zuko's heart when she'd intonated them to him. She had been grumpy yesterday, having woken up after her after-breakfast nap and feeling wetness down below to find that she had _soiled_ her mattress! As well as her clothes, her sheets, and part of the canopy that had lain on the bed!

She had been upset and embarrassed and after quietly running over to the ship cooking maid and whispering about what had happened with flushed cheeks, before sulking back to her room and laying down on the bare mattress to wait for clean sheets.

Depressed with herself, Zuko had suddenly come barging in after his morning practice, demanding to know why she hadn't been waiting in their study to play like they usually did, she grumped and crossed her arms and turned away, making sure to strategically hide the bloodstain on the bed.

"I don't feel like it today."

He frowned, that spoiled Prince.

"What do you _mean_ you don't feel like it today?" he asked angrily, small sparks flying from the corners of his lips.

He had recently acquired and was currently learning to control his Dragon's Breath. There were little cuts and scabs and burn marks around and above his lips and Uncle had assured him that it was quite normal for all males of the royal line to have them around this age.

In the back of his mind, Zuko had always impatiently been waiting to finally get his Dragon's Breath. He had seen his older cousin, Lu Ten, with the scabs and burn marks around his mouth when he had been 12 and Zuko had been 6, and since then, had been enamored and squirming to finally get it himself. The stories of how the royal line was descended from Dragons was just downright cool. And the fact that only the males of the royal family could spew fire from their mouths qualified the actuality of the tale, enthralling him immensely.

However, when he had actually acquired his new skill—one night, five weeks ago, over dinner, when he had suddenly accidentally set his entire entree on fire during a fit of coughs—he realized what an annoying nuisance it was. Since then, he had accidentally been spewing flames from his mouth during random bouts speech and been consistently burning his lips and chin.

Katara would giggle and laugh whenever he'd do so and at all the frequent visits he was taking to the infirmary to bandage and disinfect his burns, allowing him to glare back at her. It was annoying him to no end.

But that moment last night, Katara couldn't even sum up the good will to giggle at the sparks receding from his mouth and burning his lips; she had been grumpy at him barging into her room and demanding him to go to his study with her. She didn't feel like playing—she felt like wallowing in her own self pity.

Katara glared up at him from where she had been sitting on her bed. If there was one person Zuko couldn't tell what to do and order around, it was her. And she knew it infuriated him.

"I thought I was a Lady now," she mocked irritably at him, finally looking away and directing her glare at the bedpost, "You're not supposed to boss me around."

Zuko's cheeks flamed. He hadn't realized that announcing Katara as a 'Lady' in front of his whole ship would make his entire _crew_ think that he and the insufferable little girl had.. had a _thing_. He didn't _like_ Katara. He _didn't_. 'Cause girls were crazy! Obviously!

He had just turned twelve a week before he had gotten his Dragon's Breath and Katara was still eleven, anyway.

When Lieutenant Jiro had kindly informed him of the implications of his decree two weeks later, after Katara had gotten her first period, his cheeks had flamed and he'd shouted loudly at him.

At him, and the rest of the crew.

Luckily, the whole "Lady" thing was now put behind them. And Katara had not seemed to be.. _bleeding_ anytime soon after that.

So he had very quickly and tritely forgotten about the whole ordeal and they had gotten back to their normal routines (although her constantly laughing at whenever he'd burn himself or his lips was getting _really_ annoying, _really_ fast, that he'd almost even kicked her out of his study the other day).

So, he hadn't expected it when nearly three months after that ordeal with her first period had gone, she would be sitting on her bed giving him glares about not wanting to look at maps in his study in the time-space between when he would have to go to his tutoring lessons.

He glared at her and blushed thoroughly at the comment about being a Lady.

"I can boss whoever I want around!" Zuko said angrily, his nerves were on a grate after he had burned his bottom lip at breakfast today, "This is MY ship, _Princess_ Katara."

Katara rolled her eyes at the sarcasm seceding from his mouth.

"Whatever," she dismissed, "I don't want to play today."

"Why not?"

"I'm.. sick."

Zuko frowned, looking at her. She didn't look sick. Just irritable.

"No you're not. Stop lying."

Katara looked up at him from the spot on her bed when she was hugging her knees and threw him a hateful glare.

"I am _too_, now leave me alone."

"Fine! Who would want to stick around with you anyway?" Zuko shot back.

Katara rolled her eyes. "Says the _Prince_, who comes barging in here, demanding me to keep him company."

Zuko growled in rage. Katara hadn't always been so antagonistic. But recently, both of them had been grinding and grating on an edge and getting on each other's nerves. He was getting irritable and demanding, and she was getting snarky and biting. Zuko paused, staring at her for a second, feeling his body temperature heat up in anger.

"What's WRONG with you?" he finally shouted.

Katara had always been so easy to get along with. So _uncrazy_ like other girls he'd been around. Recently, she'd been getting really, really insufferable. He knew he had been too—but who could blame him? He was constantly walking around and burning his fingers and his entire mouth was covered in red, inflamed from all the heat it was taking.

"NOTHING!" Katara had the audacity to shout back, hugging her knees tighter. And then after a while, she had paused.

"I don't feel like it today. I got my period again."

Zuko paused and stilled once her words sunk into his brain. His incensing anger quickly flew out and was suddenly, quickly, rushedly replaced with embarrassment. He looked away.

And then coughed a little bit into his fist. (Luckily, no flames had come out).

"Oh."

Katara looked away, her eyes narrowed and refusing to look him directly in the eye.

"Yeah."

It was awkward for a moment longer, silent, before Katara finally sighed. She knew the Prince was feeling a lot more uncomfortable than she was, having just shouted at her for a reason he didn't know.

"Ugh," she groaned, "This sucks. I'm so disgusting."

Zuko looked up at her, not sure how he was supposed to make her feel better about herself. To be perfectly honest, to the twelve year old boy, it _did_ seem disgusting. He felt bad for her.

"You're not disgusting," was all he could say. Sure the act, the _thing_ itself (no matter how necessary), was disgusting. But _she_ wasn't disgusting.

Katara sighed and looked down.

"Yes I am."

"No you're not," Zuko emphasized loudly, frowning and looking at her in the face again.

All this talk about her period and how gross it was, was making Katara more and more upset by the second. Here was another excuse she was different from Zuko and everyone else on the ship (except for, perhaps, the old kitchen maid, but according to Iroh, being old stops it).

So, somewhere along the way, during their conversation, Zuko had decided to reassure her that she _wasn't _repulsive and that he _could_ still bear to touch her and to prove this point, had lain his arm around her and they had fallen asleep together.

Iroh had come in, searching for Zuko, wondering where he was and why he had not shown up for his lessons with his tutor, and had peeked into Katara's room, only to see the young prince laying down on her bed with his arm around her, sleeping.

It had turned into a habit, and Zuko had come in the next night to lay to sleep with her, just as proof that she in fact was _not_ disgusting during her period.

* * *

><p>Lieutenant Jee was nervous, he was approaching General Iroh was a .. rough issue. He wasn't sure if it was appropriate or not, but Zuko had been late to his morning practice that morning, just as he was every three quarter moons or so.<p>

"My sir, your highness," Jee bowed low in greeting. General Iroh chuckled and brought him up to his full height above him with his hands on his shoulders.

"There is no need for that, please, sit down. What issue did you want to discuss with me," Iroh inquired as he placed a cup of tee in his most trust lieutenant's hand. His eyes were twinkling and he already had an inkling of a clue about what the man was worried about.

The Lieutenant saw Zuko has his own son, even if from a respective distance. He had been training the boy since a nine-year-old had timidly approached and asked him if he could have sparring instruction and had monitored the boy closely to the point where the timid and freshly scarred eight-year-old had turned into a self-assured young man, striving to reach his goals. In some ways, the boy was the same.

But he thought that General Iroh might want to know why Zuko had been coming late to his early morning practice.

"General Iroh.." the man said, shifting uncomfortably in the cushioned seat in the General's quarters, "Prince Zuko.. are you aware.." the Lieutenant coughed, unsure about how to phrase it without offending either royal Prince, "he has been sleeping in the same beds with young Miss Katara everytime she has.. has been... Every three quarter moons or so."

Iroh's eyes brightened up considerably, amused at the Lieutenant's discomfort. He had, of course, been aware of this. The Lieutenant, being worried, undoubtedly amused him about the matter.

Zuko was now twelve and a half, and Katara was breaching twelve. It had developed into a habit between the two—Zuko would come into her room at night and hug her closely against him to sleep on the days she would get her period.

At first it had just been to make her feel better. Now, it was simply habit on those nights.

Zuko had become immune to the strangeness he felt at first, having been slightly uncomfortable at knowing that the girl below him was bleeding, but slowly began to ignore it. Iroh thought it was a rather momentous growth, of course. It was beneficial to both Katara—as she was coming to accept this part of herself—and beneficial to his nephew—who was not becoming repulsed to this aspect of the human norm.

He had been slightly worried that Katara would come to feel ashamed of her monthly afflictions, without exposure to many females or a mother figure in growing up. But it seemed that, somehow, Zuko had fixed this slight worry of his. He had taken on the role of a mother quite well.

Jee had to keep himself from choking on his tea when the General responded.

"Yes! It's wonderful, isn't it?" Iroh said brightly to the Lieutenant.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Hope you guys are enjoying? These chapters are not going to be precisely in chronological order, but will indeed be about their growing up. Review for the next chapter!**

**Males of the royal family get the Dragon's Breath directly before they hit puberty ;)**

**Next chapter... _waterbending_. ;) Review please if you'd like more!  
><strong>


	4. Differences

**Chapter Four: Differences  
><strong>

* * *

><p>Zuko woke up like he had just been drowning.<p>

He sat up, his eyes slammed open, and then he was struck by the sudden realization that he was heaving breaths that made him seem as if he'd been deprived of air for a considerable amount of time.

Taking a deep gulp and feeling the dryness in his throat, he was suddenly overcome by an uncomfortable wetness below his sheets.

Below his covers, his pants were filled with odd..

Odd.. wetness.

Not so odd. He had experianced this wetness whenever he'd.. he'd touched himself.

But now, all of a sudden, it seemed to have spontanteously occurred below his sheets. During his sleep.

His cheeks suddenly reddened in embarrassment. He got up off the bed and took his soiled sleeping pants off.

Placing them on the floor carelessly and with undisguised disgust, he looked over to his sheets, below his crumpled covers and groaned lightly at the realization that the fluid had gotten over and spread over a considerable amount of his sheets as well.

With a weary glance, his pupils were drawn back to the floor, where he'd disgustedly discarded of his soiled pants. He couldn't ask the washing hands to clean these for him.

That'd be too embarrassing.

And by the quality of the silk of the sheets, they would all _know_ it was him.

Zuko groaned and sat back down on the edge of his bed and sheets, his head in his hands.

What was _wrong_ with him? Why did this keep on happening to him?

He knew he was gross for touching himself, but he couldn't help but do it anyway! It just felt good.

He supposed this was punishment—punishment for touching himself down there. Ejaculating in his sheets during the night time.

His mom always _had_ told him that touching that place was dirty.

Zuko's face reddened and he felt his neck heat up.

No one had told him _back then_—when he was six—that it would feel so good when he did.

With a frown and reddened face that severely had yet to fade, Zuko gathered up his thoughts and decided on a solution to his problem. He would pull up his sheets, bunch them up together with his disgusting sleeping pants, and sneak them into the washing room so that he could was them.

Not that he'd ever washed anything in his life, but oh well.

At the very worst, he'd have to ask Katara how to do it without letting her know why he needed to know.

Zuko suddenly sighed and groaned, lifting his head up from his hands and getting up from the side of the bed, ready to gather the sheets up, when he looked back and glanced at the white stains over them.

He reached back and took two fingers to them, bringing them back to himself to observe the substance.

It was sticky and thick. Like mucous, but less watery. He rubbed the semen between his thumb and two fingers and watched the slippery substance spread and turn between them.

With a slight shudder, he closed his eyes and wiped his fingers off on the sheets once again, pushing the tangential thoughts out of his mind.

After bundling up the dirty sheets into a pile of a ball, Zuko looked up at the clock. No one would be around the washing quarters or the hallway path to them around this time—it was around 9. Everyone would be in the mess hall for breakfast. Washing was usually brought in and done around noon.

Zuko took a deep breath and looked both ways before exiting his room with the bundle in his arms. He'd have to do this quickly and efficiently—as quick as possible. It wouldn't do for someone to see the prince washing his own sheets.

But it _also_ wouldn't do for someone to assume that a Prince touched himself at night and had ended up soiling his own sheets. Giving into his more baser instincts.

Zuko ran quickly and stealthily to the washing room, breathing an imperceptible sigh of relief once he had reached it without notice.

He turned his back to the door to push it open as his hands were full, and was fully ready to tackle the washing bins and figure out how exactly the laundering process worked in order to quickly finish the washing of his clothing and sheets.

What he saw, however, when he turned back around in the room, made him choke.

Katara was _sitting_ there!

Of all the people..

For a second, Zuko felt completely enraged. What was with this girl? Not even royalty and she could do whatever she could want on this ship; in some ways, Iroh gave her more freedom than he did himself!

The anger was sprouting in Zuko in response to utter level of sheer mortification and surprise he felt at seeing her sight here.

And.. and.. what was she _doing_?

Katara gasped and turned around suddenly, hearing a door creak behind her, and as she turned around, her hands clasped behind her back and a splash of water fell around the room behind her.

For a moment, a second, Zuko simply gaped.

Katara's eyes were wide open in surprise and the two young children stared at one another, one with a bundle of cloth in his hands, and the other trying desperately to hide her hands behind her back and place a facade of innocent in his eyes.

"Wh-wh-what were you doing?" Zuko finally asked.

If he wasn't mistaken—and he'd never seen it before—she was.. was _waterbending_.

Katara sighed dejectedly (her effort to hide this had failed), and she slumped, turning her eyes to look away from him directly.

"I—I don't really know. I was just trying it. I noticed last week that the water was swirling in different ways when I tried to wash my hands and then I just—I just played around and _changed_ it."

She sighed. Her secret was out. Before she could even really know what it was!

Zuko blinked a second more, speechless. And in this moment, Katara took advantage of his astonishment and looked up at him curiously.

"What—What are _you_ doing?" she asked more critically than curiously, her eyebrow quirked up at the bundle of white sheets in his arms.

Zuko snapped out of his bewilderment at Katara's confession as he realized the focus had now rapidly shifted toward him.

What _was _he doing in the washing rooms?

Banished or not, he was still a prince. And he had servants to do this stuff from him.

For a second, Zuko's mouth exercised itself up and down. And then he snapped.

"N-Nothing! None of your business!"

Unfazed by his silly stuttering and anger, Katara looked at him confused again.

"I can do those for you, you know," she offered, wisely deciding to ignore why Prince Zuko was bringing his sheets in here.

She had correctly assumed that he had no idea how to work any of the stuff in the washing rooms.

Katara, on her own time, liked to wander around the ship when she had nothing to do (which was usually when Zuko was off in his lessons or his training sessions) and thus, she had learned her way around the ship like the back of the hand.

The crew generally adored her and her aimless wandering about and position on this ship kept her in a coveted state of neutrality—without concern or obligation or subject to protocol.

She was neither a guard, nor a maid, nor a crewmen, nor royalty.

Yet she dined with Prince Iroh and helped the crewmen with the laundry, and helped make dessert with the shipmaid when she was bored, and wandered around and mopped the deck for fun when she wanted to keep up a conversation with the deckhands.

She was a delightfully cheery girl and that, Iroh said to Zuko, was precisely why she was direly needed on the ship. He lamented over the idea that she should leave and alluded to the idea that the entire ship, itself, would fail to run if she should choose to do so.

Zuko had merely sighed and sipped his tea, ignoring his Uncle's ranting and looking over another old scroll on the desk of his Uncle's main ship study.

So, of course Katara knew how to do the laundry. What _didn't_ she know how to do on the ship?

Katara waited expectantly in front of Zuko, but he had yet to answer.

"Oh!" and idea suddenly struck her, "And I can show you what I've been doing so far," she gesticulated towards the large basin of soapy water.

Zuko found his station and then suddenly and vehemently refuted the offer.

"NO!" he shouted, face turning purple at the idea of Katara touching the wetness that stained his sheets. "GO AWAY," he demanded.

"Psh," Katara replied flippantly, "Fine! Sorry for even offering!"

With arms crossed over chest and eyes rolling, Katara stamped away.

As the door shut closed behind her, Zuko breathed a deep sigh of relief, but then looked back to the row of water basins in the steamy room and wondered how the heck he was supposed to figure out how to do this.

* * *

><p>Iroh looked around the small dining table at his two constituents and sighed.<p>

Zuko was moodly pushing food around his plate and not caring to look up. As usual per these days.

Katara, sitting on the other side, was quietly, demurely eating her fish and breadskins.

Iroh sighed lamentedly as he noticed two things.

The girl was growing up and filling out all her clothes. She would need new ones soon. And he had recently learned that she possessed bending capabilities, deriving from the water tribes of the north or south.

The boy, on the other side of the table, had recently gotten over his bout of Dragon's Breath training and fresh scabs and burns were no longer gracing his face, though remnants of these burns were.

His dear nephew's voice was cracking so often and incredibly these days, while this girl sitting across from them was going through a puberty of her own.

No longer did he join her on the nights her stomach cramped up, for he probably had his own worries to deal with at the nighttimes to keep him well away from Katara, Iroh suspected wryly.

Iroh sighed again.

He was the guardian of two kids developing puberty, each in their own ways.

And he felt his head grow heavy with extreme weariness.

How much longer until he would have to keep them apart?

He worried with the slight worry that every and each parent of two children would has: how much long until these new physicalities convalesce?

Because after all... Everything that rises Must converge.

And between him, there were two things rising.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: 7 reviews needed for an update!  
><strong>


	5. Knowing

**Chapter Five: Knowing  
><strong>

* * *

><p>"YAAAAAAAAAAA!"<p>

A shrill, loud scream rebounded off the wooden walls of the entire ship. The shriek made itself known to every member of the crew within the ship and finally found culmination with a loud slam that similarly made itself known to everyone on the same floor level.

Couple with the loud slam was the falling of Prince Zuko from gravity's generous graces.

Sitting on the floor in the hallway with his palms holding himself up, Prince Zuko blinked, confused and looking up blankly at the closed wooden door in front of his face.

He had just been—quite literally—expelled from Katara's room.

All he'd done was come in to ask her when she was going to go to the study.

Throughout the ship though, lingering minds wondered what the sound had been about.

Undoubtedly, it had been Katara's, for she was the only girl on the crew for the exception of the old kitchen-maid. And the only girl who had the lungs to shriek so loud.

So then they began to wonder who, exactly, had brought her to scream so loud.

Curious legs had quickly run and wandered over to the hallway from which the scream was uttered, only to see Prince Zuko lying quite dumbfounded on the floor in front of her door.

And very quietly, the group that had been the closest and had been able to catch sight of the rejected Prince, found solace in the shadow's away from the temperate Prince's sight and began to laugh quietly inside of their indiscreet helmets.

For they had all been young boys too. And they undoubtedly knew the perils of young girls who had unwittingly captured their beguiling and pure, innocent hearts.

Oh, those dreadful maidens.

But Zuko, in his mind, had no intention of _courting_ Katara.

Bewilderment gone and now replaced with incredulity, he slammed his hands down onto the floor and got up.

Steam breathing out from his nostrils and fists swinging across the hallway deck, he stomped away from the hallway and did not feel the satisfaction that he should have, at seeing the sudden straightening and scurrying away of the guards who had convened at the hallway at the sound of the scream and the sight of him on the floor.

He tried to ignore their glances his way, for he knew that _they_ were the reason his cheeks were turning red.

But the real _core_ of the reason was.. Katara.

Why had she had to scream? Now the entire _crew_ thought.. something entirely different!

He growled in agitation, but then gave up.

Why did she scream?

All he'd done was open the door and then suddenly she'd shrieked!

Girls! What was with them? They were all crazy!

* * *

><p>Zuko couldn't believe he was listening to this.<p>

He was currently locked inside a jail cell, more commonly known as his Uncle's tea connosiouring quarters (which had expanded considerably since he was 9 and Uncle had just taken up the hobby), and listening to a lecture.

A lecture from his uncle.

About knocking.

At this moment, Zuko quite sincerely wished that someone would slip some poison into his biscuit. Right now.

He couldn't believe he was listening to this.. this.. embarrassing _abominable_ excuse of a speech.

Telling him about how he needed to _respect_ Katara's privacy and to _knock_ before going into her room and to not _bother_ her when she did not want to be minded and and and

For Agni's sake, this was _his_ ship!

And he was being told that he had to _knock_ before going into Katara's room because she was a _girl_ and that made her special?

Ridiculous. Preposterous. A blatant lack of courtly and princely decorum. He was surprised his Uncle, himself, had not caught sight of this lack of protocol.

His was a prince. This was his ship. He did not have to knock on any door just Because.

But when he voiced these opinions agitatedly and with a furious, feverish passion, Iroh retorted with one phrase that made Zuko's face turn red and his understanding bloat away like a depressed balloon withering slightly down to the floor in front of him.

The one phrase, as it was, happened to be:

"She might be changing."

And that was what Zuko decided, had defied all years of protocol and understanding. So many years of courtly teachings by his tutor.

The _tacit_ understanding that no tutor would ever teach him.

And though his Uncle had not said it outloud, something dark and threatening in the glimmer of his eyes had alluded to what had gone unspoken in the statement when Zuko had protested against the lecture.

It glimmered in his Uncle's eyes threateningly and stated that although court tutelage would never require him to ask permission to enter a women's bedroom, Zuko would always abide by this rule as long as Iroh was alive and he was under his watch.

That as the guardian of Zuko, Iroh would _never_ allow Zuko to become such a Prince or such a Fire Lord. The type who would feel free to enter _any_ women's bedroom at his own freedom and whim.

A Fire Lord like Ozai had been.

The next day, Katara entered the breakfast room quietly, without sparing Zuko a glance.

She took her seat quietly and demurely and began to silently eat her food without chancing him even a word.

Realizing the extent of which what he had done, Zuko began to squirm in his seat uncomfortably.

How was he supposed to know (before yesterday, that is), that she might not be okay with him entering her room at his own whims anymore?

Afterall, he had always done so before.

He knew knocking was just simply a polite thing to do, but it was not something that he ever did out of necessity—simply out of mundane habits.

It was something that never really crossed his mind a lot of the time.

And unluckily for him, yesterday had been one of those time where it had not crossed his mind. He had simply pulled the door open 'cause he had had to ask her something.

He squirmed even more uncomfortably across the table from her. Iroh turned and gave him a meaningful glance: _Apologize, son_.

But he didn't want to!

If it would help Katara be friends with him again, then yeah, he would apologize.

But if only he knew _how_ to!

She was being so cold.. and uptight, that he couldn't do anything but squirm.

He glanced at his uncle pleadingly for help.

Iroh, in his mind, snickered sadistically. Oh, the perils of being a boy. He wasn't sure if he'd want to relive it again.

The later year of his teenagehood-dom, he would take back in a heartbeat.

But the later years of boyhood? Awful. Simply dreadful. No one would want to live through that again.

Zuko sighed. Of course his Uncle wouldn't help.

If only he could explain to Katara that he hadn't _meant_ to open the door at that exact, inopportune moment!

It isn't as if he had seen anything at all! She was still dressed when he'd opened the door—her back was simply turned to him, as if she'd been about ready to undress.

But the point was that she _hadn't_!

If only she could understand that, he lamented.

He was not like his father, who he knew his mother often felt discarded by whenever Ozai would visit his concubines. He would _not_ freely enter and open a girl's bedroom door. At least not until the unspoken lecture he'd had about yesterday with his uncle.

"LOOK. IT'S NOT LIKE THAT WAS ANYTHING SPECIAL," Zuko shouted out of nowhere, slamming his silver fork and knife down onto the table as he stood up off his seat and glared at her.

He was sick of her hot-and-cold silent treatment!

Surprised at the sudden outburst, Katara looked up to see the prince leaning up and over the table and practically shouting into her face.

_Shouting_ at her?

Why did she deserve to be shouted at? And then his words finally registered in her head and she gasped, affronted.

_Nothing_ special? _Nothing special?_

She had been changing! And he said that it just simply didn't _matter_?

Iroh groaned deeply, his head falling into his hand for perhaps the third or fourth time since these two kids had begun to hit puberty.

His nephew _lacked_ in the wooing department, in the most complimentary terms possible.

* * *

><p>It was only when another similar shriek resounded across the ship, two weeks later, that Zuko had decided quite finitely to install locks on Katara's door.<p>

For it had not been him, this time, who had instigated the screams.

It was Lieutenant Jiro, a friend of Katara's, who had simply wanted to know if she would like to play a game of chess with Jee.

Once he found out that the 20-year-old man had been the one at her doors, Zuko made the stolid and unwavering demand that Katara get locks definitively placed on her door.

His face had been red as he had made the command—with sheer anger at the event that had propelled him to do so, mixed with the embarrassment of actually voicing it.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

**I know review ultimatums are annoying, but realize that the one I put up on last chapter allowed me to update and upload this chapter on the same exact day. **

**:D Doesn't that make you want to review even more? You might get another one in the same day!  
><strong>


	6. Dresses

**Chapter 7: Seraglio**

****At the precipice of 14, Zuko had fallen into a strange hobby.

It was, peculiarly, buying dresses.

For her.

Iroh noted this change. At first, the task was simply menial-

Katara had mentioned that she was outgrowing some of her clothes to Iroh oneday over the breakfast table. Iroh had nodded and suggested they pick up a few more bolts of fabric at the next port.

Zuko had mindfully ignored the conversation in the midst of Katara and Iroh's usual morning chitchat.

It was only, when Katara had gotten properly outfitted (not in custom-made dresses hand-sewn from bolts of fabric, but rather from store-bought clothes tailored to fit her) had he blinked once, twice,

three. Four times. At her chest. And then swiftly averted his gaze.

None of the other crew-members, of course, were phased by the new uniform.

"Oh, what a lovely young lady Katara is growing into!" they would compliment in passing on the day she finally decided to wear one of her new dresses. She was, afterall, still a wiry, lanky, and ever-so-exceptional child in their eyes. Especially in comparison to the women with whom they normally acquainted themselves with.

But to Zuko, who never normally acquainted himself with women, and who had grown up with a childhood friend who was as much delicate as he was patient, the change was staggering. To him, she sitting precariously in the cusp of thirteen and fourteeen in the transition to adolescence, and no longer physically a child. And the new developments on her physique mystified him.

And once Iroh noticed the way in which Zuko suddenly began to regard her body as an enigma, he too suddenly realized that she was _thirteen._

For a proper excuse to inspect these changes, Iroh suspected, Zuko fell into a strange obsession of purchasing clothing for her. (And, of course, conspicuously hiding proof of these purchases). Although Zuko did not like to it, he longed to see her outfitted in one of the new ensembles. To satiate his curiosity. To realize more of _her_.

She was only thirteen, and any decent grown man would say that she had very little to boast of for the fairer sex. But to a fourteen-year old boy on the same ship as her, her newly developing figure was beyond arousing.

The brown dress draped over the curve of her hips perfectly. (He hadn't known that even existed).

The blue dress had stitched pleating on the sides that made her chest swell up. (Too ostentatious, he decided, given that he couldn't hazard her a glance for the entire rest of the day).

The green dress conservatively hid everything but could not hide two curious tent-like obtrusions. (Somehow, that made it his favorite one).

Whenever she would come walking in, wearing a new outfit he had left in her room, he would only allow himself half a second to chance a gaze. Then he would proceed to cough surreptitiously into his fist, and promptly look away from her. He didn't really know it, but he lived for those half seconds. It satiated his curiosity of her.

Iroh had not noticed at first; Katara had simply assumed the new dresses were gifts from various crewmembers. However, once Iroh began to take note of Zuko's peculiar shell-shocked silence, he realized his nephew's new obsession. And it was then that he realize that the boy whom he practically fathered was already fourteen.

So, it seemed fit that for his fifteenth birthday, Prince Zuko be taken to a brothel. It was tradition for fire nation boys who did not already have a sweetheart at 15.

It, Iroh resolved, hopefully would put an end to Zuko's curiosity. Every 14-year-old boy had such a curiosity about the opposite sex.

However, he sought to make it clear to Zuko that Katara should not be the object of them.

As a matter of principle, General Iroh did not generally approve of harems, seraglios, or brothels. However, for the matter of this purpose, he deemed it permissible. It was commonly understood that the sailor's lifestyle warranted many frequents to such a sketchy tavern whenever stationed at a port. He knew that unless they chose to turn a deaf large ear to it all, Zuko and Katara would have already noticed that crewmembers would sometimes house giggling companions in their cabins.

So Iroh deemed it permissible for them to take Zuko on his first trip to a brothel with notably responsible members of the crew. It was the boy's 15th birthday, after all. And after half a year of agonizing over what Katara looked like beneath the many different robes he had bought for her, Iroh thought it was time well enough for him to realize.

When Katara was 14 years and 4 months old, Zuko went to a brothel for the first time.

Zuko, of course, had no clue as to where he was going at that time. But his curiosity with dressing up Katara slowly ebbed away afterwards.

Women were for being used: to satiate the needs, desires, wants, and cravings of men in a respected way. At least certain women. Katara was not one of them, Iroh sought to make clear.

While Zuko may seek pleasure or relief with women who willingly provide such things, there are certain categories of women who are above such degrading and demeaning acts. Katara was one of them.

In his head, Zuko had sorted her out already. Whenever he felt the need, about once every two months, he would visit the local seraglio. Katara left from his mind.

By the time Zuko was fifteen and a half, Katara had felt that he had changed into a completely different person. No longer did he casually speak with her or at the very least, find the time to spare to spend with her. He had distanced himself completely and seemingly, without a care. Not just from her, but from Iroh as well.

He begun to fold in on himself. Jaded, mystified, and unwondering.

* * *

><p>AN: Whoo. Started up after a while. Thoughts?


	7. Changes

**Chapter Six: Grown**

* * *

><p>On his fifteenth birthday, as promised, Zuko of the Fire Nation was given a new ship from his father.<p>

However, when he received the letter—or more, correctly, when Iroh received the letter, for the letter had not been addressed to Prince Zuko himself—the Prince's taciturn reaction was the only thing that worried the crew.

Zuko had not been overjoyed. He hadn't shouted words of conviction or recite any pledges to capture the Avatar. He was silent.

The boy had long since forgone trapping his hair up into a topknot. Now, it freely flowed about, falling over his eyes.

He looked like a normal boy, as the Prince did not even care to put his armor on anymore. He was a normal teenage boy, except for the fact that he was... eerily silent for the majority of the time.

Upon reciept of the letter during a noon lunch, Iroh turned to him and excitedly gave him the news. Zuko simply shrugged and turned to Iroh with something a bit deeper than dispassion sitting in his eyes. After a moment, he spoke.

"Tell him I said thanks," his grappily voice monotoned to his uncle. Zuko didn't look up from his bowl of jook and continued, slumped over the table, bringing a spoon of the rice-broth slowly to his mouth. Iroh frowned. Zuko referred to his father as '_him'_. _He_ hadn't sent him any letters for a long while.

These days, Zuko simply wore a tunic and vest (Its more comfortable, he said), he kept his hair down (its just another hassle, he said), and didn't care to throw haughty remarks around. He didn't give the crew any orders (The captain is the captain for a reason, he said, despite the fact that he had spend the latter portion of his childhood screaming orders to the crew), and here he was, slumped moodily over the brunch table.

Who would guess that this taciturn, plain-looking boy with poor-posture, sitting across from him was a Prince of the Fire Nation?

Zuko, Iroh realized, did not care about being seen as the Prince of the Fire Nation anymore. He knew he was one, but no longer felt that this fact carried any significance. He did, after all, confine himself to the ship, in which practically everyone already knew his allegiances.

Perhaps, Iroh hoped, Zuko was simply turning into a teenager who valued personal comfort over the will of appearance? Though Iroh hoped that this was the reason for his conceptual change, he doubted it inside. Something inside Zuko had changed. Something had fallen.

Katara was down in the steward room and so it was just the two sitting at the table. It seemed that Zuko did his best to avoid her as much as possible anyway. Iroh would have been pleased if Zuko had been avoiding her as a result of a fledgling crush, if not for the fact that his observations lead him to believe that Zuko disliked Katara's company only because her composure served as a reminder: of hope.

Zuko stood up as he finitely set the spoon down onto the table.

"Wheres Katara?" Zuko asked. Iroh's widened in surprise. It seemed that truly, Zuko did not care for Ozai's pronouncement at all, changing the subject so quickly.

"She is, um, in the lower deck, I believe."

Zuko hummed approval before turning away from his Uncle and leaving the galley. From his view of the door, Iroh dissapointedly noticed that Zuko turned to walked in the direction opposite of the lower deck.

Iroh sighed. What was he going to do with this boy?

When they arrived at the port in which the new ship was apparently sitting and waiting, Zuko donned his armor before getting off the ship. He tied his hair up in a topknot, but the apathetic look on his face didn't change and the poor posture, hidden by the heavy black armor, was simply concealed.

Their ship anchored at the dock and unfeelingly, Zuko stepped out and turned to the ship beside it, which was presumably his now.

With two fingers, he signaled his arrival and presence to the maintenance men currently aboard it. The quickly lowered the plank, allowing Zuko and his Uncle to step up and observe the accommodation, joined by their Captain.

Larger than their considerably, they would need a larger crew. With hands folded behind his back, Zuko headed the tour lead by a maintenance men, silently allowing his Uncle and Captain Jee to fill the air with their comments and chatter.

His keen eyes, with his forehead uncovered for the first time in a while, observed the wide halls and various large rooms for the crew.

And then suddenly, he turned around, to the great surprise of both Iroh and Jee, and ignoring the maintenance man leading the tour, he walked back to the ship.

Once on deck, Zuko called over the small 9-year-old shiphand swabbing the deck in front and quietly ordered him to inform the crew to begin the move. It would take about half a day, Zuko decided, and he returned to the antechamber of Iroh's quarters, in which he often did reading.

When Iroh and Jee returned and found Zuko sitting in his quarters, flipping through a scroll casually while the crewmates were busily organizing supplies and maintenance tools to move over to the next ship, Iroh shook his head once again in disappointment.

Oblivious to the chaos going on around them as the move began, Zuko was quietly sitting in Iroh's library, reading?

When Iroh stepped into the room, he silently sat down on a plush armchair near where Zuko sat in front of the lowtable.

After a long moment, he spoke.

"That was Azula's ship."

Iroh nodded. After a few long moments and as the tour continued, he too, realized that it was his niece's old ship.

Another silent moment transpired between them. Zuko continued staring down at the scroll, but Iroh could not tell whether he was reading it or not.

"How were you able to tell?" he decided to ask.

"There were restored burn marks," Zuko replied in his gruff voice, "Everywhere."

Why was it, that when Zuko spoke, it seemed that he was always gasping for breath? His voice was always raspy, perhaps from disuse. But there was something deep and longing below the surface, Iroh gesticulated. There had to be.

A boy did not become this way on his own.

Zuko continued to sit at the floor beneath the low table in the front of the scroll he had opened up before him. Without a word, Iroh sat there with him, staring at the back of his young nephew's shoulders, covered with heavy black armor, for another hour. The two heard the hustle and bustle of movement outside of the door, where the crew was excitedly moving to the new ship along with all their things.

"They'll be here soon, too, Zuko," Iroh warned his nephew, "To move all the books and my things. Perhaps they've already started on your room."

Another silent moment passed between them before Zuko spoke.

"Give Katara... Azula's room on that ship."

Iroh's eyes widened in surprise. Azula's room would've been the largest one, with several antechambers and its own private galley. It would, no doubt, also have an entire balcony view of the ocean.

It would have obviously transferred over to either himself or Zuko, as the largest suite.

"I don't need anything like that," Zuko said, looking away, "And I'm sure Azulas left some of her things there." Zuko turned his head.

"They're about the same age, aren't they?" he whispered.

Iroh looked over at the young man whom he considered his son, carefully. "That... can be arranged," Iroh replied just as carefully.

Suddenly, the door jammed opened and an excited young waterbender stepped in.

"We're moving? Zuko, you got a new ship?" Katara exclaimed, her face flushed from presumably running to Iroh's quarters after failing to find Zuko in his own.

Zuko face twisted into a look of agitation and then, he immediately pulled the topknot out of his hair. "It's _Prince_ Zuko," her irritatedly corrected her.

Katara, framed by the doorway with both hands clutching the doorframe, stuck out her tongue and ignored his comment.

"Zuko! You did not tell her?" Iroh admonished. Zuko grunted in response before shrugging one shoulder and turning his head back down to the table. Iroh shook his head at his nephew once more.

"Zuko actually personally picked out your room," Iroh gleefully exclaimed to the fourteen-year-old girl. Katara responded with an indignant gasp and then looked to Zuko accusatorily.

"You're going to make me sleep in the prison holds, aren't you?" Katara asked angrily, pointing a finger at him. Zuko's head snapped up, irritation at both his Uncle's wording and the accusation sent in his direction from Katara.

"What?" Zuko's mouth dropped at the both of them.

"Zuko has personally instructed me to give you the royal suite," Iroh continued, blatantly ignoring his nephew's protest. Katara's head slightly pulled back in confusion and her mouth began to phrase a confused question before she was promptly cut off by Zuko.

"They're Azula's rooms," he said by way of explanation, before frowning and getting up to move quickly past Katara. These days, he was growing increasingly more irritated with the presence of Uncle Iroh and Katara together.

After he left, Katara stood in the doorway for a moment longer, confused, before she finally spoke.

"Isn't that Zuko's... sister?"

Iroh sighed a deep, sorrowful sigh, as he nodded slowly and sadly. His brother was a sadist to his own children.

As Katara stepped into the wide room, which spanned the entire deck of their old ship, Zuko surreptitiously found himself following behind her. Katara jumped up when she heard his voice pop up behind her.

"Everything in the closets is yours," he said solemnly. His gaze raked over the room and he hoped that Katara would change everything about it as soon as possible. His assessment of the room had passed through and that was enough.

Katara's eyes widened curiously after Zuko left and she stepped forward to open up the closets.

There were perhaps fifty or sixty different outfits. All in the colors red and gold, except for two in the color green. She had never seen so many expensive clothes all in one place. Cautiously, she stepped forward and picked one out, laying it against her front after finding a large mirror pitched against the wall near the gigantic canopy bed. It was close to her size.

Exhausted at being bestowed with the luck of gaining such an adequate room, or perhaps the alacrity of it, Katara fell back onto the comfort of the mattress behind her and stared up at the cloth clinging to the posts and hanging down from them like a pregnant belly.

She wondered why Zuko acted like this.

Later, she found out that Zuko had picked a medium-sized cabin for himself. It was smaller than both the Captain's and Iroh's, but was not as small as the shiphand cabins. Curiously, it held an antechamber, which was why he had probably chosen it. It had presumably belonged to the chef on the previous ship, but it was by no means due to the Prince on any formal assignment.

More curious than his choice of quarters, Zuko had thrown out all of his childhood gadgets and tools. The pretty compasses and glass oracles gifted to him by his distant relatives back in the Fire Nation were all ordered to be thrown overboard rather than transferred to his cabin in their new ship.

The gifts had slowly stopped coming as he had grown older, perhaps the memory of him fading within the minds of the self-gratifying nobility who would only send such toys in the hopes of gaining favor with the Prince who may someday return to rule. As he grew older, fewer and fewer packages came and now came none.

The years of his childhood spend with Katara in his study, mapping out adventures and making up stories. Zuko had deemed them all lost with one simple command.

Instead, his new room, he outfitted with sparse belongings. One fire nation flag, the scrolls from his Uncle's library he favored the most, half of a motor engine he was currently obsessed with repairing in his spare time. His dual swords hung up. No amusing knick-knacks or gadgets or playthings.

Zuko was only fifteen years old. Yet, for the first time in the six years Katara had known him, she felt that something was off with him.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Any and all feedback is appreciated!**


	8. Letters

_Katara, will you run away with me?_  
><em>l promise I'll find us a way.<em>  
><em>I'll just be another lost boy in the Earth Kingdom: it'll be a better reality for me.<em>

_We'll start a life of the plain and the simple,_  
><em>Of great times, with far better people-<em>  
><em>And weekends with our friends, <em>

_laughing about the wine that stains our teeth._

_We'll talk about how you separated from your parents and_  
><em>About how you don't wanna make the same mistakes as them.<em>  
><em>It'll be just about us, stickin' it out,<em>  
><em>And trying to feel forever young.<em>

_Together, we'll start all over again._

_Katara, will you run away with me?_  
><em>I know I sound crazy, but don't you see what you do to me?<em>  
><em>I want to run away and start all over again<em>

_This is my only chance for a better reality_

_Katara, run away with me._

_I promise we can get away,_  
><em>Just say the word and I'll find a way,<em>  
><em>I wanna be your lost boy, far from this reality.<em>

_This is my last chance_  
><em>An 'everything-better' plan<em>  
><em>Somewhere in another land.<em>

_Katara, run away with me. I need to find a better reality._


End file.
